A New Species

Over thanksgiving weekend with friends I met a friend of a friend and we spent some time getting to know each other. On the last day she made the comment “You are like a new species of bird to me. I’m so curious about you.”

It made me think and I liked the idea. I also realized that that is perhaps what has been missing in my approach with others in the past. I’ve allowed and nurtured myself to be different and expected others to be the same. This is not to say that they haven’t shown me otherwise, but merely that I have a sense of myself as different from the whole, when really, we are each beautiful in our own way and unique.

The quotidian behavior, which I have to a certain extent been expecting, is ironic since I myself have been questioning the cultural norms presented earlier in life and am rapidly changing and evolving. Why shouldn’t I expect others to be as well?

If I am finding happiness in being who I truly am, isn’t it probably that others are fluctuating and evolving too? Therefore, being open to listening and asking questions as if someone is a species that I do not know fully will allow me to really get to know them better and is a step in my own growth. I can see this happening in sitting down and asking questions with the genuine expectation that I don’t already know the answer, in that it may subsequently free people up to respond with how they really feel. Isn’t this a more anthropological and scientific approach?

Since the societal norms that I learned growing up and over the course of my life are the framework that I’ve expected in the past and as I’m learning, are not the only way that people communicate and behave, naturally shifts in my behavior and thinking pattern will also emerge. I am happy to identify this shift in thinking and now eager to begin to explore the biodiversity of the landscape of my family, friends, and all those I encounter in life.